Savvy Gardening

Preventing pests in your garden: 5 strategies for success

Most gardeners face plant-muching pests in their vegetable garden from time to time, and usually they aren’t that big of a deal. But, sometimes pest numbers rise to an unacceptable level and the little buggers cause more than mere aesthetic damage. As gardeners become more and more aware of the potential dangers of exposure to synthetic chemical pesticides, many of us want to skip the sprays altogether and turn to other pest control methods instead. By far, the most useful technique for controlling garden pests is preventing them from nibbling on your plants in the first place. The good news is that preventing pests in your garden is easier than you think, if you employ the 5 very effective strategies I outline below.

5 garden tips for the winter

Written by The Savvy Experts

Your garden is all snug as a bug for the winter, but your green thumb is itching to do something outside in the yard. What’s a gardener to do? Well, there are a few things that you could busy yourself with if the mood strikes. With that in mind, we’ve gathered a few garden tips for the winter that might satisfy your need for some wintry fresh air.
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Beyond your basic gardening books: Our favorite reads

Written by The Savvy Experts

The Savvy Gardening experts don’t just write gardening books, we also read them. A LOT of them. And over the years, we’ve discovered many personal favorites. Today, each of us would like to introduce you to three of our most-treasured gardening books. These reads go way beyond your basic gardening books and delve deep into both the science and art of gardening.
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Serious garden gear for hardcore gardeners

Written by Jessica Walliser

This is not a gift guide. We’ve already done a handful of gift guides over the years. You can read them all here. What this is instead, is a list of the stuff YOU want, not a list of the stuff you might want to buy someone else. Call it a “wish list,” if you want, but what I prefer to call it is an I-must-have-that-this-very-instant list. This is serious garden gear for hardcore gardeners; this stuff goes way beyond your basic hand tools.
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Our favorite Lee Valley garden tools

Written by The Savvy Experts

For almost 40 years, Lee Valley Tools has been a go-to store for American and Canadian gardeners. The reason is clear; they have really cool garden gear! They know that the right tools make gardening easier, faster, and more comfortable. In fact, many Lee Valley garden tools are designed in-house, so they can ensure the best-quality products for their customers. To celebrate the best of gardening, we’ve teamed up with Lee Valley to spotlight some of our favorite garden tools and products.

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5 tips to successful cold frame gardening

Written by Niki Jabbour

Cold frame gardening is an easy way to extend the homegrown harvest into late fall and winter. A cold frame is just a box with a clear top. It’s unheated, but captures solar energy and shelters crops from the elements – cold temperatures, frost, wind, ice, and snow. You don’t need a large garden to accommodate a cold frame. Even a small, urban garden will benefit from this simple structure and allow you to extend the growing season. In my books, The Year Round Vegetable Gardener and Growing Under Cover, I offer a lot of tips and ideas for gardening with cold frames. Here are a few of my favourites…